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Vladimir/Strategy
Champion Spotlight Recommended Items Tips ;Playing As * instantly deals damage to the enemy before healing , making it one of the best last hitting tools in the game. * Cast where it will affect the most units. * pops incoming missiles, so it can be used to dodge disables. ;Playing Against * Be wary of team fights while afflicted by . * Making use at the start of a fight will maximize the health cost of the ability to him. * Items that counter health stacking, such as and the , are very effective against . Tricks ;Ability Usage * Level to rank 5, as it is Vladimir's most constant single target damage ability, as well as his heal. Remember that the base healing component is a flat amount modified by additional ability power, so even if the target is not damaged (i.e. shielded, blocked by , or blocked by ), you will still be healed by the ability. ** When using , you won't be healed until the particle returns to you. * Having at least 1 rank of can help you survive for much longer, as it resets aggro. A skilled player can use it to turret dive or to dodge abilities. However, it has a long cooldown and a short duration, so do not become too reliant on it for escapes. * It is wise to use to chase down an enemy or escaping from one, as there is a slight movespeed burst when becomes the pool. Using it as a damage skill could leave you extremely vulnerable if you can't kill the enemy. * is excellent during teamfights if you're waiting for cooldowns and don't have . * Vladimir can use summoners spells and items during , so use this to your advantage. * During he becomes untargetable to both enemy and allied champions. ** During , he will therefore not be healed by any ally Area of effect heals like . ** will still affect Vladimir in his . ** While in Vladimir is not affected by any auras, including auras from items. While no ally or enemy aura will affect him, Vladimir can still take damage from DoT spells like , and due to the heavy cost of , using it to "escape" such spells can actually harm badly. * Using at the right moment can dodge projectiles or AoE abilities like , , , , , , , , and (and will also break the lock-on). ** does not cancel leash spells such as or ; it will, anyway, prevent the stun from . * If you are chasing, charge for only one second instead of the full 1.5s, as the slow is applied with only one second of charging, and you are slowed during the last 0.5s of charging. * causes targets to take bonus damage, so it is advised to use it at the beginning of team fights to increase the overall damage your team can inflict upon your enemies. Mid to late game, will negate both the increased damage debuff and the 5 second delayed damage component, make sure to spend as many of the opposing team's charges prior to activating. ** This skill is best used when combined with other AoE ultimates, such as , , or . In particular, is capable of rooting everyone on the enemy team, making sure they are affected by . This can be combined with the other aforementioned ultimates for massive AoE damage. ** You don't necessarily have to combine it with AoE ultimates. Hemoplague also works well with any champion that packs a lot of AoE damage, such as , , and . * can be used to finish off a target low on health. The range to the edge of the AoE is deceptively long; keep this in mind when deciding whether to pursue a target near death. * When using , be wary of champions who can counter the delayed damage, such as those with shields or heals. Do not depend on it to ensure your kill. * Casting will not deal any immediate damage, and therefore can be used to kill low health enemies under their turret, unless they can heal (e.g. ) or shield (e.g. ) themselves before the damage takes place. * Casting on or clones will not affect them, so it shows clearly which twin is real. ;Runes Usage * The keystone you want to go pretty much every game is . It offers extremely flexible Summoner spell options with the option to switch spells around throughout the entire game. Another reason why this is the best keystone on him is because it naturally offers 15% summoner spell CDR. ** With this rune, you can go + in the lane for some early kill pressure or it can be used to make the enemy laner respect you in lane since has one of the weakest early games. *** You can also not take and just go , or in lane if you are facing a hard matchup. ** In the mid/late game and also in teamfight phases, you should most likely go for a + combo. You can use these spells with the reduced cooldowns to run into the enemy backline and unleash your full combo. You can also go for a flank behind or through the side into the enemy team. * Refering back to and it providing 15% summoner spell CDR, in the Inspiration tree, you can take . ** offers 5% summoner spell CDR which stacks with the Spellbook for a total of 20%. *** It also reduces item active cooldowns by 5%. ** naturally gives 5% CDR and increases the CDR cap to 45%. ;Item Usage * 's passive, , allows him to be deceptively tanky while dealing high damage. By building large amounts of AP, Vladimir can bypass health and focus on damage and durability. * Another stat that Vladimir should focus is cooldown reduction, as he is extremely reliant on his spells to survive and deal damage; Vladimir will want to max cooldown reduction for optimal usage of his spells, allowing him to heal the most and deal the most damage possible. Unfortunately, as a manaless AP mage, viable cooldown reduction options for Vladimir are extremely scarce, so it is recommended to supplement Vladimir with cooldown reduction runes if possible. * is probably the most powerful item for Vladimir. It offers AP, HP, cooldown reduction, and its active not only offers him extra damage, but more importantly, a small dash, which is very important, because Vladimir is naturally slow and lacks mobility oriented spells. * Another item that is very important for Vladimir is , as it provides bonus HP along with the AP, armor, and cooldown reduction. This item allows Vladimir to save his to escape on other situations. It also gives Vladimir much better teamfighting potential. * is one of the best starting items for Vladimir. It gives him health regeneration which is really needed as Vladimir's sustain is small early in the game, while also helping him with harass. It gives him AP due to his passive. It also helps Vlad with last hitting due to the second passive. * is a viable starting item, even though it offers mana. The increased healing from potions and the ability to take more than one potion compared to make it an appealing starting option, and Vladimir's passive can easily make up for the fact that The Dark Seal does not offer any HP. Also, if Vladimir happens to kill enemies, he can gain even more AP. Never upgrade it to , as this item does not offer the stats that Vladimir needs, is extremely snowball reliant, and he has a harder time not dying due to his short range. Instead, sell it late game if you need the item slot. * is needed if you wish to do significant damage late game. * are easily the best boots for Vladimir. He is heavily reliant on cooldown reduction, and those boots help him waste less slots on other items with cooldown reduction. Other boots that could potentially benefit Vladimir such as (due to the magic penetration) or (due to the tenacity) could be used, but Ionian's Boots are usually non-negotiable, unless you can afford to get cooldown reduction from other sources. * is one of the most popular items on Mages. However, because of , it also grants health and the bonus AP gained interacts with his passive, making it even more cost effective and powerful. ** If you want to focus only on Vladimir's damage, though, it is better to leave for late game, and buy magic penetration items instead. * is a powerful item on Vladimir, increasing all of the aforementioned healing by 20%, giving him AP due to his passive and giving much needed CDR. It can be used as Vladimir's primary magic resistance option. However, keep in mind that it offers less damage potential than . * is a good item to buy thanks to Vladimir's high base damage. This item will provide Vladimir with ability power, and health thanks to his passive. Due to recent nerfs to Rylai, it is being considered more times as the secondary main option for Vladimir. Its upgrade, , is good on Vlad because he is constantly dealing damage, and actually has some slows on his kit that allow him to double the passive damage. ** Due to recent changes, this item isn't as much of a core item as before. It lost its magic penetration, but gained another passive that rewards extended trading whith a champion, something that Vladimir excels in, more than many mages. With that said, this item is now best used against tankier teams against which the percentage health damage is more valuable. * is a viable option after recent changes, and is an alternative to Liandry's Torment, especially against champions reliant on sustain, such as , , or an enemy ADC with lifesteal. Because of Vlad's tendency to deal a lot of AoE damage, he can apply Grievous Wounds to multiple enemies. Remember that the health gives Vlad even more AP! * is a viable option due to it being cheap and offering cooldown reduction and movement speed, both which are vabluable for Vladimir. The active essentially works for Vladimir like a Youmuu's Ghostblade, giving him more movement speed to help him catch enemies that are far away. It also gives Vlad more utility for his team, especially if it doesn't have an enchanter support that can buy Shurelya. ** It has very few AP and health, though, so its damage potential is low, especially since it doesn't offer the offensive passives that the aforementioned items have. Keep that in mind when purchasing this item. You may want to sell this item late game and replace it with an option that gives better damage potential. * is extremely good on Vladimir. It offers him AP, magic resistance, and cooldown reduction. It also has a spellshield which is very important for a short ranged champion like Vlad. This spellshield is really good against assassins which rely on a single spell to start their assassination combo, like Fizz or LeBlanc, and protects him from CC too. * is still a viable item for Vladimir. This slow is sometimes necessary against bruisers that rely on sticking to Vlad to win, like Darius. However, its damage potential has been significantly reduced. * can be used for even more sustain. Its active also helps Vladimir dealing a lot of burst damage against a single target. It isn't recommended however, due to its awful build path, high price, wasted stats (Vladimir does not benefit from AD or lifesteal at all) and the fact that this item offers none of the stats that Vladimir wants, such as HP or cooldown reduction. ** But more importantly, it locks you from building Hextech Protobelt-01. Which makes this item an even worse build. * With the recent rework, a tanky build got significantly more viable on Vladimir. His have a good health scaling, he still gains AP from building HP thanks to his passive, and he now gets even more healing with his kit alone, without having to rely on spellvamp. ;Countering * Grievous Wounds help a lot against , reducing its healing. ** An rush can be Vladimir's bane against AD champions, since it prevents him from trading with them effectively, and force him to be zoned. ** Since changes in V8.4, any magic damage applied inflicts them with Grievous Wounds rather than the 35% Health threshold pre V8.4. However, this item isn't as common as before, since it is harder to fit in some mages' builds. ** and , however, are rather useless against Vladimir. Even though they have Grievous Wounds, it requires the enemy to use basic attacks on them. Vladimir will never need to basic attack because his damage is 100% focused on his spells. Those items offer armor, which do nothing to reduce Vlad's magic damage. It also inflicts Grievous Wounds for very little time, insufficient to reduce his sustain significantly. ** Some champion abilities can reduce health regeneration such as . * Early game, stay just out of range of his . If he uses it on a minion run forward to harass before his cools down. * Vladimir lacks any hard crowd control to interrupt channeled abilities, but watch out as his allows him to avoid abilities that have effects while channeling (like ) or he can time it to avoid channels that have an effect at the end (like ). * Vladimir is one of the most powerful champions at late game, as he becomes virtually unkillable, with overwhelming damage and can wreck past an AP mage's normal counters, fighters, if he is able to reach this point defeating him proves extremely difficult. ** However his late game dominance has a cost, an awful laning phase, with having a long cooldown, low damage and healing until rank 3-4, step in to harass right after he uses the skill to farm, his only counter-harass will be which doesn't deal much damage and damages him. * Focusing Vladimir in a teamfight is not a very good idea - he is very tanky due to his passive, he can restore his health quickly and lose all focus with . * Trying to kill him takes a long time if he is properly positioned and can distract your team from other key enemy targets such as the ADC and assassins. * If you fail to kill Vladimir late game and he escapes he will be able to fully restore his health with minions and jungle monsters without going to back to base. * Do not underestimate late game. In an average late game, can dish out from 450 - 540 damage pre mitigation from to all surrounding enemies. With some cooldown reduction, he can spam this spell continuously and easily wreak havoc if left unchecked. * Try to harass into using his early in a fight so he takes more damage from it and cannot use it to escape focus fire. Vladimir will use 20% of his current health whenever he uses , so if you force him to use it, you've effectively won the trade. * Even if uses he still takes damage from DoT spells such as , , , and . * Remember that doesn't heal until the particle returns to him, and because the animation is two-staged (impalement, then return), most single-target projectiles like and will generally hit him before he's healed. This is useful to remember should you be uncertain about last-hitting him. * Due to he gains health as his spells grow more powerful, however this leaves him vulnerable to health percentage damage items and abilities (e.g. and ). Category:Champion strategies Category:Vladimir